No dead chubby child
with wings can help
me now that I suffer
tip of the tongue spells
more than I care
to remember. Myths
recounted in another
language mean as much
to me now that he’s been
pronounced
alive. Departing.
Sounds like (he) fled.
Before this incessant counting,
I blended days
with nights
into a potent tonic.
Not for sipping. I began
to erase light
with thickened walls
of ice and stone. When melting
followed, I blamed all
I’d rubbed out.
I know it’s not the numbers
or letters that keep me alive.
But I’m certain they have wings.
for Sheri
She knows every inch of the dock,
every splinter, barnacle,
hurricane seam.
It is not a plank.
It is just where she walks.
And she knows how to dive,
has been doing it for years.
No easing shore side
into the wash for her,
she plunges in and is “used to it”
before others wake.
This is underworld—closets,
caves, roads, the drag
of undertow. This is where she should
live, she who in her heart is a sponge
is a sponge is a sponge.
It is laying out to dry,
the exposure to air,
the rising sun. It is her death
to be before all of you. In performance,
she will never work a room,
works the ocean floor
for all it’s worth.
Leave her uncontained. She would rather
paint kisses—watercolor running—
than be confounded by a mirage of roses
she cannot reach, without a body
unprotected by skin.
Sailboats on ice, lake ghosts
cut a V-shaped point
of view. Old boat works to come
down. Or could be collapsible
corrugated metal to be
reassembled further along
shore. Not sure about apparitions,
she knows addiction
costs. Can’t be repurposed. No matter
how many times he drew life from the lake,
it won’t help him now.
Take Hamlet—angst-ridden
over mermaids drowning
in estuaries before they posed
for sculptors to earn their own
rock island refuges.
I knew one who believed
in only one art—the art
of anger. He grew up near
Rock Island, Illinois.
He doesn’t count.
He recreates himself, prepares
to be drunk again. I come
to him with my stainless steel moon
cup, my female thirst, prepare
to be drunk again. He presses
himself, won’t press me.
If I do this, it won’t be his
descent. Is it that I wish to be divine,
or my fear of sticking around
too long—the moon’s rhythm
over the ocean lost.
I want to climb into your chute and go
where you’ll take me. Part of the longest continuous network
anywhere, you’ve lost
something. A building? Parking ramp? Human
contact? Asymmetry
is an addiction. Skyway to nowhere,
feed me.
To embarrass a lone monk
she fills herself with oak.
He staggers and
despite everything (which strives to be
nothing)
can’t deny the ecstasy of dwelling
in scents of bark, sap, and
blossom. Before he can steady
his breath, she pours leftover contents
of the moon
into his mouth—pure soma, no
rhubarb substitute will due. But it’s the heat
from her enabler’s hand
he can’t resist.
Scene of accidents
in deep thought to be cracked apart
for easy turn over
another examination into the least lies
of poets before an absinthe
conversation between all of us and sidewalk concrete
the way it got slapped
down for one of us to greet at midnight.
It was a wider door
I never knew could be opened till she leaned in
and dozens followed
behind so many more watching from balconies
labeled by decade
so no one forgets. And a hill to tuck
and roll down that last
night before strutting on out. There’s no return
to that position—the center
of gravity has shifted as it must.
You could have been a caryatid before
you learned to swim. Water gave you
a perfect getaway.
No longer shouldering it,
you’ve made a throne
of past struggles. All freedom
comes at a price—twice
losing your head, even your right arm
you never said you were willing
to give away. When you go
to China to play ambassador, your drowning
sisters may try to lift your island
rock for themselves. Your
burden will be theirs.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 